What's In A Name?

GIN BEACH

If you sit at Gosman's Dock and look across the Lake Montauk inlet to the beach on Block Island Sound, you're looking at Gin Beach. It stretches along the north shore of Montauk from Shagwong Point west.

One might think the name stems from the days of Prohibition. Rum Row, as it was called, lay 12 miles off Montauk Point, after all.

But in fact, Gin Beach recalls the days - about 250 years' worth - when East Hampton cattle and sheep were driven on Montauk to pasture each spring, and driven off in the fall. A gin was a gate or corral, a fenced enclosure to trap the animals at roundup time. The stock were driven into the gin whenever their keepers wanted to inspect them, drive them from field to field or back to town, or simply move them around.

"Men on horseback drove the cattle into the gin, where they were 'pocketed' by gin-keepers, who put bars, or lengths of movable fence to keep them in order when they were once enclosed," according to a Star article.

At Gin Beach, keepers had the responsibility of making sure cattle did not stray from North Neck across the beach into Indian Field.

Each June 20 a great roundup took place at Third House, after which the beef cattle and some cows with calves would be turned into Indian Field, the best grazing land on Montauk. Today it is Indian Field County Park.

The name Gin Beach dates back to 1665. The beach itself is a narrow strip of sand that is cut in two today by the inlet in the lake, also known as Great Pond.

End note: Last week's "What's in a Name?" referred to Learned Hand, who was in fact a Federal judge on the Court of Appeals, not a Supreme Court Justice. However, he was sometimes called "the tenth Justice," since the High Court so often cited his decisions.

M.N.